Italy, with Sketches of Spain and Portugal

Beckford, William, 1760-1844Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
801K words
Chapters
81

Tags

English Originals Travel Human GeographyHistorical ReappraisalNature ObservationTravel GuideEclectic ReadingExotic CultureCultural ChangeSocial ObservationFolk CustomsCross-Cultural View

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Italy; with sketches of Spain and Portugal by William BeckfordAuthor: Beckford, William, 1760-1844,Language: English, Class: DP: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Spain, Portugal, Release Date: Oct 23, 2012

Editor's review

This work is a collection of two travelogues by the English writer William Beckford, recording his impressions of Italy, Spain and Portugal in epistolary form and with sketch-like strokes. Moving through southern Europe as a wealthy collector and traveller, Beckford observes churches, palaces, landscapes and street life with the aesthetic sensibility and personal temperament of a late-eighteenth-century English gentleman; the prose is polished and vividly visual. As a public-domain ebook, it is better read as a literary travelogue than as a modern practical guide: its information on transport, prices and social conditions is long outdated, yet the author's sensitivity to art and architecture and his imagining of exotic scenery still let readers sense the observational mode of the early Grand Tour tradition. It suits slow reading in a quiet setting; kept alongside a map or art-history reference for comparison, it offers a richer reading experience.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the Italian section first, then dip into the Spanish and Portuguese chapters as interest dictates
  2. Keep a map of southern Europe or an art-history reference at hand to compare place names and buildings as you read
  3. Set the descriptions against other travelogues of the same period and note the author's personal biases and aesthetic leanings
  4. One or two letters a day is enough; there is no need to race to the end

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
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  11. 11
  12. 12
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  25. 25
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  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
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  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
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  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
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  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81

FAQ

Is this book a practical travel guide to southern Europe? No. It is a literary travelogue of the late eighteenth century, recording the author's personal impressions and feelings; its information on transport, lodging and prices is long obsolete and cannot serve as a modern travel reference. Its value lies in its literary description and historical perspective.
Can I understand it without a background in European history? You can follow the general sense, but the book touches on many churches, palaces and art collections, and without background knowledge its finer points are easily missed. Look up place names and architectural terms as you go, or begin with an introductory piece on the Grand Tour.
How difficult is the original English? It is English prose of around the nineteenth century, with long sentences and fairly formal vocabulary, but on the whole not forbidding. Readers with university-level English can finish it with notes and a dictionary; start with the shorter chapters.

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About the author

Beckford, William, 1760-1844 Author

William Beckford (1760–1844) was an English writer best known for Vathek, an Arabian tale in the Gothic vein. Five of his works are held here: different versions of Vathek and its English rendering The History of Caliph Vathek, together with Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents and the travel book Italy with Sketches of Spain and Portugal. His writing often blends Oriental imagination, strange landscapes and a melancholy mood, as Vathek typically shows; the novel has had some influence on later Gothic fiction and fantastic narrative, while his travel writings record impressions of Italy, Spain and Portugal. Public information is limited, and biographical details are hard to verify, but the surviving works show him skilled in both imaginative narrative and travel writing, with a florid, vivid style.